Only an avowed racist would ask that question.

It is possible to be a NIMBY and be BIPOC.

Nothing wrong with a personal desire to have natural light, not be impacted by car pollution and noise.

It's still NIMBY, however.

@1- not necessarily a racist. Perhaps simply a moron.

OMG why are people bickering over who’s a NIMBY. Mudede makes a cogent point that developers aka “the market” never makes any affordable units. Do you blame people for not wanting another unaffordable apartment bldg gentrifying their neighborhood?? It’s not like developers are going begging to build working class housing in any neighborhood, they’re actively displacing longterm BIPOC residents.

Like, why don’t people opposed to building a new youth jail or North Precinct also get shot down as NIMBYs?

“NIMBY” is the 2023 McCarthyism of the progressive class. It works a lot like people who dismiss “woke” out of hand without thinking it through critically. At all.

@5 agree. NIMBY is thrown around nowadays against anyone who has any objection to the progressive-urbanist worldview. NIMBY used to mean someone who did not have a valid reason for opposing something, they just didn't want it next to them. Now if you oppose anything, even with valid reasons, you are labeled a NIMBY which of course is a way to be dismissive without addressing the underlying argument.

Joy Holllingsworth and what is left of the black community in the neighborhood have a helluva lot more at stake than Hannah Krieg or the flood of Amazon developers who are scrambling for luxury apartments/townhomes.

And they've earned the right to be stakeholders through decades of struggle and hard work to hold on to their homes despite a system that has always been stacked against them.

But punching down on anyone who raises questions about The Stranger's ultra-orthodox version of "urbanism" seems to be par for the course around here. Keep it classy, Hannah!

Yes, of course black people can be NIMBYs. The main reason there aren't more of them is because they were systematically prevented from owning valuable property for decades.

Charles misses the point here. To get adequate low-income housing, you need to make it easier to build market rate housing AND build plenty of public housing*. It was always that way. Always. Prices have skyrocketed in Seattle even though we continue to build plenty of social housing. The problem is, we haven't built enough market-rate housing, and zoning is the main reason. Thus the zoning has played a big part in displacement. This is just common sense, but it was also the conclusion of this study: http://seattle.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=F&ID=9611821&GUID=81FE334E-2E8E-4EDE-8CD1-4EB80458233E

To quote from it:

“The urban village strategy has not been able to mitigate the displacement of BIPOC residents because it perpetuates a land use and zoning policy that was specifically designed to limit their housing options,”

“With 75% of residential land excluded from accommodating more affordable housing types, low-income BIPOC residents are left confined to certain sections of the city, competing for limited affordable housing opportunities.”

Here is the Seattle Times article about it: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/seattles-longstanding-urban-village-strategy-for-growth-needs-reworking-new-report-says/

Theoretically the problem could be solved by government intervention alone, but that is unrealistic. The city budget is too low. The state would have to pay for it, and they have no interest. There are other issues, but again, this approach (public housing as the only way to reduce housing costs) is simply unrealistic in this country, let alone implemented by an individual city. We should be looking at models from places like Japan and Germany, not Austria.

@8 Makes great points. Supposedly liberal Seattle constrains low cost development through zoning and red tape and conveniently blames developer greed. We may have missed our chances at low cost housing already and this impacts and lower income residents and historically minority neighborhoods disproportionately.

Charles often mentioned poor Blacks in America. But he also glossed over the challenges that the middle-class American-residing Black residents, mainly home-owners, have faced for decades and are currently facing. This debate about whether or not Black people can be NIMBYists is more a slap in the face to the Black middle class in Seattle and in the Pac NW. As a Black non-native-born Seattleite in this demographic and as someone who is a life-long Democrat, I'm no longer surprised by how ignorant white liberals, especially west of the Rockies, are with regards to their lack of understanding, awareness, and exposure to the Black middle class.

It's still a shock to many white west-coast liberals when someone like myself is able to buy property or pay rent in the historically white neighborhoods or in areas of neighborhoods like Capitol Hill, Montlake, Broadmoor, Ballard, Sandpoint, or Wallingford for example. White liberals and socialists in this region tend to view all Black residents as low-income and in need of government-subsidized affordable housing. Many of us aren't that. We're tired of white West-Coast liberals and socialists lumping all Black people as poor and being completely shocked when they see Black professionals or successful Black small business owners dominating the same spaces traditionally held by white NIMBYists.

The majority of those same white West-coast liberal and socialist urbanites quickly become the NIMBYists in their neighborhoods and at work. They start to take shelter under non-Black POC socialists, like Sawant, in order to feel like they're fellow disciples of the social-justice movement in order to have a feeling of safety and belongingness. They do so in order to avoid being labeled a racist because they believe that the alignment of their beliefs to someone that's another radical person of color, who doesn't identify as Black while viewing all Black people as lower-class, is a safety net to their "feelings". They start to look at the Black middle class, especially the fortunate multi-generational families, who've managed to fight off the various aggressive and non-aggressive attempts of property foreclosures (eg. the Hollingsworth), with vitriol and jealousy by wanting to label us as NIMBYists mainly because we don't want our neighborhoods turning into blighted ones aka the ghetto. The ghetto just happens to be what white West-coast liberal and socialist urbanites flock to because they're affordable places to live as long as they have a shrug sense of superiority to the residents of color since they feel like they're blessing the "blighted" neighborhoods with their presence of whiteness. Thus in which ignites the cycle of gentrification. Hannah definitely revealed herself as such in her article against Joy Hollingsworth.

BTW as a side note, can we also bring up the fact that throughout Sawant's tenure in Seattle City Council, she herself carries this sense of superiority and expects her crass beliefs and behavior to be excused and accepted mainly due to "see this is what I did for YOU people (only when I need the votes). How dare you be so ungrateful to me?"

So if you were to ask, how does one prevent white liberals and socialists from viewing all West Coast Blacks as poor and not being in the middle class? Well I honestly don't know the perfect answer to that. My first guess would be exposure from an early age. Ensure that public and private schools K-12 have a diverse set of faculty across all subject matters. Black teachers don't fucking mess around and are serious professionals, who try to make sure their students perform well and will recognize and challenge all students to be the best they can be. In other words, Black teachers won't accept mediocrity from all of their students. They typically leave a positive lasting impression on those students. One that lasts well into students' transition into the professional world, whether it be white or blue collar or the military, and often into interpersonal relationships. Basically they have a diverse set of friends and aren't intimidated by what other whites think of them. Hell if a child wants to attend an HBCU, then let them do so. Parents, put aside whatever explicit and implicit biases that you have while raising your kids, they quickly pick up on it even when you don't think you're exhibiting it, but also encourage your children to hang out with the black honor roll students. Parents should also seek out Black physicians and medical specialists for your families. Again that exposure to the Black middle class and upper class from an early age ensures the Black middle class doesn't get labeled "NIMBYists".

Just my thoughts.